Anyway, I’ve come up with a plain, readable, style sheet for the RSS format (an application of XML). This style sheet — if RSS authors include a link to it — will make otherwise garbly RSS files readable from most of the newer web browsers.

I'm planning to work up an XSL template, too — but that might not happen for a while.

Monday, October 14, 2002

Cool balloon sculptures - a bunch of photos of some amazing sculptures (no giraffes!) made from balloons. Warning: one x-rated balloon image, and one racist balloon sculpture, are, unfortunately, to be found amongst all of the otherwise quite good and family friendly works.

Tuesday, October 8, 2002

As a guy who has taken many feminist courses at university, my smarmy, sarcastic, retort has always been "yeah, a course where we learn about all the evil stuff men have done and continue to do to women is a great place to 'pick up chicks'." ;)

In reality, the women's studies courses were the most personally challenging and intellectually exciting courses I took at university. The instructors weren't 'disinterested academics' - they had a strong personal interest and engagement in the topics that created an amazing environment of shared growth in understanding.

And, no, I never did get a date from any of those courses :)
(although there were many wonderful people, some who remain good friends these many years later).

As to whether men are "pro-feminist", "real feminist", "pro women" or whatever: I am a feminist, man. I am consciously working to eradicate sexism and patriarchy from myself and society. I try to reject social divisions based on sex or gender (and most other social divisions, too).

Am I free of male privilege? Am I free of sexist behavior? Do I consistently ignore sex and gender in my treatment of others? No - but is anyone else completely free of sexism in this patriarchal society? I'm trying, and making mistakes and learning. This is a daily struggle - made easier by conscious engagement (and mutual support) with those around me.

So, why do some feminist men feel more radically feminist than the women in their lives? Maybe because we have the privilege of being able to get away with it - safe while being vocal. When I proclaim my radical anti-patriarchy views, it doesn't threaten my job. It doesn't stop me from getting a date. It doesn't threaten my social ties.

Maybe there's an element of machismo in taking a 'hardcore' stance or seeking the status of 'biggest' feminist. Maybe we're fitting our expression of feminism into the traditional 'male protector' role. Maybe there's a sense of needing to 'prove ourselves' by taking an extreme position.

Whatever it might be, I try to temper my male impulses with continued dialogue. There's always more to learn and experience.

So, I've launched a discussion/project on Search Query Interface Discovery. My hope is that it'll provide a standard way to identify local search engines that can then be used by tools like my buddy's bookmarklet - or maybe even be built right into web browsers.

Friday, September 6, 2002

I've got four separate knitting projects on the go right now. I'm almost done my shoulder bag (just have to attach the shoulder strap (knitted i-stitch cable). I'm finally making good progress on the baby toque for my friend's recent family expansion. I'm working on a one-foot square for a blanket for the anti-poverty sleep-in. And I've started on a sweater/hoody (from a pattern that I'm modifying).

At this subversive event - in defiance of manufactured dependence on corporate 'goods' for our survival - we will be freely sharing skills to enable each other to produce our own clothing and other subsistence needs. So, too, will our time together serve to build the bonds of community that have been shattered by corporate devilishness - and to break down the social walls of our society that would divide us.

In a show of allegiance with our city's noble anti-poverty activists, many at the gathering will be pouring our labour into valiantly crafting revolutionary one-foot squares. These spirited squares are to form the basis of blankets to carry our powerful message of resolute defiance against the foul forces of poverty.

As the range of our courageous skills of craft spreads, so to do those skills expand in scope. A daring revolutionary will be bringing the knowledge of the "cable-stitch" to be shared by all who would use it to confront those who would defy us! Certainly, there is a most clever metaphor to be found in the knowledge that a "cable needle" has no stopper, but rather is pointed on both ends!

All revolutionaries are called upon to seek throughout the land for the means of production. Our inspiring arsenal of yarn and needles must continue to bourgeon that we may overthrow those who would keep those tools out of the hands of the people. We will strive to provide for those without, and gratefully take in the contributions of those who - through extraordinary effort - can make provision for both themselves and others.

A special call is made to seek the opening of the eyes of men to the cause. Our brothers remain too few in seeing the grand nobleness of the Knitting Revolution!

Truly, it is the duty of each one of us to spread this glorious message to all who might hear it that we may speed forward our revolution to its inevitable victory!

Thursday, August 29, 2002

I dreamt that I was being ordained as a Catholic priest. Oddly enough, the ordination ended up taking place in the gym of my Jr. High School.

Meanwhile, some people were trying to kill me before I could be ordained (and there was some sort of torture involved - but nothing graphic). I was slithering along the gym floor trying to avoid my would-be killers, who were also slithering because everyone had to be lying on the floor during the ordination ceremony.

Needless to say, I was pretty stressed out by the time I got to the actual ordaining part - and then I was told I had to give a sermon that morning.

There were a group of about 8 of us who had to give sermons - the ones in front of me were all pretty boring so I was determined to give a 'riled-up' talk (I forget what my topic was). I was going to read from a book I had written (hah - you can tell by that statement alone that this was definitely not reality) which was considered inappropriate by some of my fellow sermonizers, but I justified it by saying that I had written it, so it was my words.

Monday, August 26, 2002

Since I haven't released a new version for a few years now, I figured it was about time I released the CapsBeep utility for free (instead of the US$10 shareware I was charging). [Download CapsBeep]

CapsBeep is a Macintosh (System 7 thru OS 9) control panel that modifies the behaviour of the caps lock key.

Its options include a warning beep when caps lock has been pressed (especially useful for those using keyboards on which the caps lock key does not 'click'), and an option to use the shift key to 'reverse' the caps lock so that if both caps lock and shift are active, you will get lower-case characters.

Saturday, August 24, 2002

About a week ago, I was up until 5 in the morning trying out some new (to me) knitting techniques. I had a couple knitting magazines with various interesting patterns in them (and a glossary of terms, abbreviations and standard stitches, thankfully).

So, after a late night of reading through discussions on web design and standards, I'm thinking I need to finally learn and make the transition to XHTML (version 1.0, I figure) in my work. Anyone know of any web browsers that would hose?

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Remember how during the dot-com craze there were all these "e-businesses" that were having terrible losses. That none of the big names was making any profit?

At that time I was working in the stock photography industry. An industry that embraced digital delivery (to the extent where traditional stock media are about as accessible as 8-tracks now). The company I worked for, EyeWire, made big profits off of web sales of digital content (stock photos, video, illustrations).

Two simple lessons stand out from my experience there:

1) Customer service is the backbone of the business. You can have a crappy website (we didn't - but it did have it's problems as with any service), but if your customer service will do whatever it takes to get the product to the customer as quickly as possible, you will have customers and those customers will stick with you.

2) Make it as easy as possible for the customer to get your product in whatever form they want it (without technical constraints on usage - only legal constraints), and make it easy to pay for the product in that process.

The entertainment content industries don't comprehend either of those. If they did, they would likely already be making more from digital delivery sales than all of their traditional modes. (IIRC, for the stock content industry, web sales overtook 'hard goods' sales around 1999-2000)

There's something else that comes to mind: If you treat your customers like they are criminals, they will come to see you as a criminal. Case in point, the audio recording industry whom many (if not most) of us now perceive as thieves riding on the backs of musical artists.

Friday, July 26, 2002

Their description:
"Web Wary
"Calgary webmaster Grant Neufield is afraid visitors to his site are being badly misdirected. Type in the wrong suffix and you could wind up taking a radical right turn. Jeff caught up with him this morning."

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Speaking of the Christian Bible... I just came across an incredible Lego construction: "Abston Church of Christ". This is a massive project - done over an almost 2 year period. It's got amazing details, and an incredible set of documentation.

There is a construction diary, and an extensive set of photos and explanations. Very cool.

I sent a fun little e-mail to good buddy of mine today. Here's a cute little clip:

I will destroy mine enemies before me.
I will plunder the wreckage of their homes and bodies to feed my inevitable victories.
I will salt the earth whence they stood, lest new enemies should grow from the foul soil.

Surely mine shall be a vengeful and righteous path.

Ezekiel 21-
15: I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.

Jeremiah 34-
20: I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.

Nahum 1-
4: He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers...
5: The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
6: Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

Deuteronomy 29-
23: And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein...

Monday, March 18, 2002

Sunday, March 10, 2002

I learned how to "cast off" last night, so I finally finished my first knitting project!

I had started out trying to do a square, but it ended up a little more abstract than intended. However, I seem to have the general idea now, so next time my square should actually be square (fingers crossed).

Thursday, February 14, 2002

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

An old friend of mine from out East is continuing some very interesting - and frankly, quite geeky - musical work involving aging technology such as old dot-matrix printers. The National Post has published an article on that work titled, Dot Matrix Symphony: Turning defunct technology into art.

Having seen one of the earliest performances of that work back in Ottawa, I can say I knew him when... (how's that for a cheezy statement?)

I used to work for a company called EyeWire. A couple years ago, EyeWire was bought by it's chief competitor PhotoDiscGettyImages and then gradually (painfully) shut down.

Back in 1998, I did up a Sherlock search plug-in for the EyeWire site - allowing people to use EyeWire's website search with Apple's Sherlock tool. I think it was in 2000 that a deal was made with Apple for them to include our plug-in with Sherlock - so we were then a part of the OS distribution.

I was putzing around in Sherlock this morning and noticed the disappearance of the EyeWire plug-in and the appearance of a new GettyImages plug-in. Curious, I dug into the ":System Folder:Internet Search Sites:" folder and discovered that the EyeWire plug-in is still there. However, now it's contents are blank - it's been wiped out - so it doesn't show up in the Sherlock interface. It's not as if it no longer works, either, since the custom version downloadable from the EyeWire site (which, surprisingly, is still up and not just redirecting to the GettyImages site yet) still works.